


If I'm Dreaming (don't wake me)

by AngeNoir



Series: Inktober 2018 [4]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Apocalypse, Gen, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 11:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16196708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: Even if he was hallucinating... Napoleon would take it.





	If I'm Dreaming (don't wake me)

Quite honestly, Napoleon had always assumed he’d meet his end either messily, in a back alley somewhere, or surrounded by luxury. He had not, for one second, even remotely visualized brainless, brainwashed humans who could spread their brainless-ness through bites. Blessedly, there was no real danger when it came to said bites, so long as one was aware... but the problem was that it was hard to be aware.

Of course, those in their late-stage form were noticeably greyish in color and most bestial - they were easy to avoid. They were very fast, however, and tireless for over fifteen minutes of sustained, continuous running. Napoleon had seen quite a few... not comrades, but acquaintances, people he had once cooperated with to survive the end of the world, run down mercilessly by such late-stage beasts. Those in mid-form still looked human, and were the most contagious since they would bite, but they looked human, so one wasn’t on guard with them.

And then there were the early-stage form. Just bitten, feverish and sick.

The first two times that some of the men in the little makeshift camp had come back, feverish and weak, they had quarantined them and hoped they could find a cure.

In the end, they had taken them out of the camp grounds and shot them, execution style, in order to stop the decay and smell of rot and the ceaseless, monotonous moaning and groaning.

Now, Napoleon was perched at the edge of the rooftop, eyeing the ground below. Even if he threw himself, he knew that humans could survive if they were lucky - or, in his case, unlucky. He had no desire to become one of the brainless horde that currently bunched up stairwell. He had blocked off the door access to the roof, but who knows how long such a barrier would hold out.

He wondered what Gaby was doing. Or Illya. They had been out of country when the papers started reporting the strange disease, and then they had been on their way back, trying to escape the sweeping virus that was overtaking the world at the time.

There was a gun in his hand, and it had been initially intended to scare off other scavengers. Scouting missions had shown the small grocer to be unoccupied from the infected, but other humans could and would fight viciously for supplies. A gun would protect him from other scavengers... or it could be use for a quick end.

But he didn’t really want it to end. He glanced back at the door speculatively, then back down at the ground. He wanted to live, to keep on fighting, and he didn’t want to take his own life into his hands like this. But he also wanted nothing to be given to those... monsters. He wanted nothing of him in their bellies, nothing of him wandering around in that mass.

There was a knock on the door.

Napoleon furrowed his brow. He hadn’t ever seen the brainless mastering civilization - they threw themselves at doors or chairs or windows, and that was the extent of their motor skills.

He’d never heard of them  _knocking_.

There was another, heavier knock, more demanding, and - curious - he decided why the hell not. If he needed to take himself out before getting bitten, he had the gun.

Slowly, cautiously, he opened the door.

Blood-stained and grimy, Gaby turned and looked up at him. “He’s alive, Illyushka.”

There was a sickening crunch noise, and Napoleon was... utterly flabbergasted. He couldn’t - this was - this was  _so_  far out of what he was expecting -

More grunting, and the constant background noise of groaning was almost nonexistent. “Will you waste more time there, then?” came Illya’s rumbling growl.

Gaby grinned at Napoleon, reaching out and taking his hand. “We finally get in the country, and not only that, but track you to your camp, but you are not there! So we had to come find you.”

Then Illya came striding up the stairs, dripping ichor and gore, and growling under his breath. “You stand around like fishwives, gossiping. Is not safe here.”

Napoleon might have been hallucinating, but if he was, he was willing to be taken in.


End file.
